Browsing: Business and Economics

A Brief History On February 9, 1996, the synthetic element, Copernicium, was discovered by a research team at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, named after the famous Polish astronomer and polymath, Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik in Polish), 10 days after the discovery, on the 537th anniversary of Copernicus’s birth. Digging Deeper Some of the other elements named after people include Curium, Fermium, Mendelevium, Nobelium, Einsteinium, Bohrium, Roentgenium, Lawrencium, and others.  Perhaps you recognize some or most of these names as major historical scientists. You might not appreciate a disease or disorder being named after you,…

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A Brief History On January 31, 1988, Doug Williams quarterbacked the Washington Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XXII, the first time an African American quarterback had played in Super Bowl history. Digging Deeper Standing 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighing a solid 220 pounds, Williams played college football at Grambling State, starting all four years and posting an outstanding 36-7 record.  In his senior year, Williams was a premier NCAA quarterback, leading the nation in yards passing and touchdown passes thrown, although he only finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting. Williams became the 17th overall pick in the…

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A Brief History On January 27, 2010, Apple, Incorporated introduced their industry leading line of tablet computers they called the iPad. So successful was their invention, that many variations followed, such as the iPad Mini, the iPad Air, and the iPad Pro.  Apple has sold 670 million plus of these handheld computers, so many that the name, “iPad,” has become the more or less accepted generic name for tablet type computers. Digging Deeper Many products have so dominated their respective markets that their name has become the generic term for those classes of products.  Names such as Q-tip, Kleenex, Jell-O,…

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A Brief History On January 26, 1959, the California State Lands Commission posted Chain Island, a 41 acre island in Suisun Bay where the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River meet, for sale with a minimum acceptable bid of $5,226. Digging Deeper An island made much larger than naturally occurring by the dumping of tailings from hydraulic mining up the rivers over the years, California had long intended to “remove” the island by hauling away the dirt and rocks, for use as a source of possible mineral recovery.  Alas, removal never happened, and the island sat there in the way…

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A Brief History On January 25, 2019, the people of Brumadinho, Brazil, found out how dam failure can be a catastrophe when a mining dam broke and 270 people were killed.  The same mining company previously had a dam fail in 2015, at Mariana, Brazil, killing 19 people, far fewer than some other major dam failures. Digging Deeper In the US, the worst dam failure as far as human fatalities, was the South Fork Dam failure in Pennsylvania in 1889, an earthen dam overwhelmed by heavy rains that killed 2,208 people. This dam had failed before!  Another US earthen dam…

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